Well I’ve been taking suggestions on sites to review since I was starting to draw a blank on what to do next. I knew their were more sites out there, but for some reason I couldn’t think of one to do.
Doc Stogie Fresh gave me a list of suggested sites and I picked Joya de Nicaragua out of the list. I thought for a moment my search would be futile, I spent a good 20 minutes trying to find the company website.
Cigars: B
Joya de Nicaragua’s site seems to have all their cigars listed so that is one major hurdle crossed that trips up many manufacturers. There seems to be a phobia in the industry of including a decent amount of photos and showing a breakdown of the tobacco and Joya is suffering from it. You are able to pick it out of the description though.
Company: A
Contact and History is very good. The news isn’t bad and is listed on the front page, but it would be really nice to see a separate section with all the past news. What’s the deal with linking to PDF’s? The cigar industry isn’t the only one at fault here, but it annoys me. More the once I’ve had a big PDF link kill my browser. At least put a warning that the link goes to a PDF. OK I’m getting down off my soapbox now.
Features and Usability: C
They are missing the one thing I like to see, a retailer locater. Another little annoyance is the link to Forums in the menu when there are not actual forums. I’m not sure how active the forums would be anyway, it is almost impossible to find the site.
Recommendations:
They need to spend some money and get JoyadeNicaragua.com. Drop the heading link for the forums and replace it with a news section or retailer locater. It also wouldn’t hurt to spend some money on a developer, it is very obvious that this site is cut straight from a template.
Popularity: 9% [?]
